Karl Rove's Enemies List

[Nbadan]

http://www.bushsbrain.com/images/karl-rove-mug.jpg
Turdblossoms up to no-good again

Issue Date: February 6-12, 2006, Posted On: 2/6/2006
Rove counting heads on the Senate Judiciary Committee


The White House has been twisting arms to ensure that no Republican member votes against President Bush in the Senate Judiciary Committee’s investigation of the administration's unauthorized wiretapping.

Congressional sources said Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove has threatened to blacklist any Republican who votes against the president. The sources said the blacklist would mean a halt in any White House political or financial support of senators running for re-election in November.

"It's hardball all the way," a senior GOP congressional aide said.

The sources said the administration has been alarmed over the damage that could result from the Senate hearings, which began on Monday, Feb. 6. They said the defection of even a handful of Republican committee members could result in a determination that the president violated the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Such a determination could lead to impeachment proceedings.

Insight Magazine (http://www.insightmag.com/Media/MediaManager/Rove2.htm)

Can you say obstruction of justice and intimidation? Let's hope Patrick Fitzgerald gets a clue.

[boutons_]

Here's one Repub who just ended her political career:

==================

February 8, 2006


Republican Who Oversees N.S.A. Calls for Wiretap Inquiry

By ERIC LICHTBLAU

WASHINGTON, Feb. 7 * A House Republican whose subcommittee oversees the National Security Agency broke ranks with the White House on Tuesday and called for a full Congressional inquiry into the Bush administration's domestic eavesdropping program.

The lawmaker, Representative Heather A. Wilson of New Mexico, chairwoman of the House Intelligence Subcommittee on Technical and Tactical Intelligence, said in an interview that she had "serious concerns" about the surveillance program. By withholding information about its operations from many lawmakers, she said, the administration has deepened her apprehension about whom the agency is monitoring and why.

Ms. Wilson, who was a National Security Council aide in the administration of President Bush's father, is the first Republican on either the House's Intelligence Committee or the Senate's to call for a full Congressional investigation into the program, in which the N.S.A. has been eavesdropping without warrants on the international communications of people inside the United States believed to have links with terrorists.

The congresswoman's discomfort with the operation appears to reflect deepening fissures among Republicans over the program's legal basis and political liabilities. Many Republicans have strongly backed President Bush's power to use every tool at his disposal to fight terrorism, but 4 of the 10 Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee voiced concerns about the program at a hearing where Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales testified on Monday.

A growing number of Republicans have called in recent days for Congress to consider amending federal wiretap law to address the constitutional issues raised by the N.S.A. operation.

Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, for one, said he considered some of the administration's legal justifications for the program "dangerous" in their implications, and he told Mr. Gonzales that he wanted to work on new legislation that would help those tracking terrorism "know what they can and can't do."

But the administration has said repeatedly since the program was disclosed in December that it considers further legislation unnecessary, believing that the president already has the legal authority to authorize the operation.

Vice President Dick Cheney reasserted that position Tuesday in an interview on "The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer."

Members of Congress "have the right and the responsibility to suggest whatever they want to suggest" about changing wiretap law, Mr. Cheney said. But "we have all the legal authority we need" already, he said, and a public debate over changes in the law could alert Al Qaeda to tactics used by American intelligence officials.

"It's important for us, if we're going to proceed legislatively, to keep in mind there's a price to be paid for that, and it might well in fact do irreparable damage to our capacity to collect information," Mr. Cheney said.

( yawn, Nixon-like, dickhead forever plays the "national security" card to cloak the Exec in total secrecy. Congress defending the Constitutional check/balances is now traitorous, treasonous. )

The administration, backed by Republican leaders in both houses, has also resisted calls for inquiries by either Congress or an independent investigator.

As for the politics, some Republicans say they are concerned that prolonged public scrutiny of the surveillance program could prove a distraction in this year's midterm Congressional elections,

( exactly. The Repugs don't give a shit about the Constitutional issues. It's all aboug the Repugs maintaining their political power, the Constitution and the USA be damned )

and the administration has worked to contain any damage by aggressively defending the legality of the operation. It has also limited its Congressional briefings on the program's operational details to the so-called Gang of Eight * each party's leaders in the Senate and the House and on the two intelligence committees * and has agreed to full committee briefings only on the legal justifications for the operation, without discussing in detail how the N.S.A. conducts it.

Ms. Wilson said in the interview Tuesday that she considered the limited Congressional briefings to be "increasingly untenable" because they left most lawmakers knowing little about the program. She said the House Intelligence Committee needed to conduct a "painstaking" review, including not only classified briefings but also access to internal documents and staff interviews with N.S.A. aides and intelligence officials.

Ms. Wilson, a former Air Force officer who is the only female veteran currently in Congress, has butted up against the administration previously over controversial policy issues, including Medicare and troop strength in Iraq. She said she realized that publicizing her concerns over the surveillance program could harm her relations with the administration.

( iow, she's one politically dead lady )

"The president has his duty to do, but I have mine too, and I feel strongly about that," she said.

Asked whether the White House was concerned about support for the program among Republicans, Dana Perino, a presidential spokeswoman, said: "The terrorist surveillance program is critical to the safety and protection of all Americans, and we will continue to work with Congress. The attorney general testified at length yesterday, and he will return to Capitol Hill twice more before the week ends."

Aides to Representative Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, who as chairman of the full House Intelligence Committee is one of the eight lawmakers briefed on the operations of the program, said he could not be reached for comment on whether he would be open to a full inquiry.

Mr. Hoekstra has been a strong defender of the program and has expressed no intention thus far to initiate a full review. In two recent letters to the Congressional Research Service, he criticized reports by the agency that raised questions about the legal foundations of the N.S.A. program and the limited briefings given to Congress. He said in one letter that it was "unwise at best and reckless at worst" for the agency to prepare a report on classified matters that it knew little about.

But two leading Democratic members of the intelligence committees, Representative Jane Harman and Senator Dianne Feinstein, both of California, wrote a letter of their own Tuesday defending the nonpartisan research service's reports on the surveillance program and other issues, saying its work had been "very helpful" in view of what they deemed the minimal information provided by the administration.

Scott Shane contributed reporting for this article.

* Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

[Vashner]

How fucking retarded....

Sounds like more liberal crybaby wah wah...

Baby need bottle??

[101A]

These stories are really powerfull. Administration could well get egg on its face...

BUT

The public is on G.W.'s side on this one in a big way. All polls I've seen support the admin, and believe them when they say this was "spying" on enemies. True or not, that is the perception. I think the Dems stand to get beat up politically if they go to far with this. Similar to the backlash the Republicans got when they impeached Clinton; he did, in fact, commit perjury; NO WAY the Senate was going to convict.

[George W Bush]

fucking retarded....

you rang?

[Darrin]

These stories are really powerfull. Administration could well get egg on its face...

BUT

The public is on G.W.'s side on this one in a big way. All polls I've seen support the admin, and believe them when they say this was "spying" on enemies. True or not, that is the perception. I think the Dems stand to get beat up politically if they go to far with this. Similar to the backlash the Republicans got when they impeached Clinton; he did, in fact, commit perjury; NO WAY the Senate was going to convict.


I love this: One guy is setting precedent for the Goverment to spy on its own citizens, historically the first step towards curbing minority opinions, and the other lied (albeit under oath) about getting a blowjob from a fat intern.

In terms of the Presidency - not morality or legally - what is more damaging to the country?

And, don't you think that if the bar for "high crimes and misdermeanors" is lowered to include sexual indiscretions, how can we not proceed with impeachment proceedings with President Bush? What bothers me is that very few understood the long-term implications of Impeaching President Clinton, the only sitting President to ever be successfully sued - not on behalf of the office, but William Jefferson Clinton.

[Yonivore]

come on..seriously...monica was not that fat
http://www.strangepolitics.com/images/content/100708.jpg
No, not at all...

[Nbadan]

You know, these guys have been listening in on domestic phone calls from the very start, a recent article had the number at 5,000 since 2001, and that's just the calls they acknowledge they wired. That would give a Executive with unchecked powers 5 years to build and refine and 'enemies list'. Perhaps this plays into the other thread of why even Democrats are so afraid to oppose the WH on it's most controverisial issues.

Welcome to the new America.